Secrets Under Night's Shroud
by Kalira69
Summary: Diaval's devotion to his mistress runs deeper even than the oath he swore, and drives him to more than simple errands and spying on her behalf.


The idea for this story actually came to me at the theatre when I watched the movie for the second time, and I drafted it immediately upon returning home . . . and then never quite finished it until now.

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A soft sound woke Diaval from what had been a peaceful sleep, and he lifted his head, hunching his shoulders as he rose, with a couple of quick hops, to the edge of his neat little nest. He tilted his head, peering through the dark barely touched by moonlight. Just as he was ready to dismiss the disturbance as nothing more than a harmless sound of the fickle night, it came again, slightly louder . . . this time clearly shaded with pain.

He flinched, but . . . Diaval followed the soft sound disturbing the peace of the Moors forest in the night to its source. He ducked his head tentatively as he peered towards. . .

"Mistress?" Diaval said, his voice as soft as he could make it, his feathers fluffing up warily as he approached his mistress' bower.

Maleficent woke with a minor start, and turned towards him just as her brilliant eyes fluttered open - they were wet, and her stark sable lashes glittered in the moonlight with a beading of tears. Diaval dipped his head with sorrow. Maleficent let out a breathless cry as her weight settled further upon her back, the place where her wings had been stolen - _torn_ \- from her paining her still, after all these years.

Diaval knew that the pain of severed muscles surrounding the ragged spurs of bone paled in comparison to the agony of her loss, however - he saw his mistress watch the lesser fairies in flight, many of the creatures in the Moors flitting and soaring freely, and he saw her pain in those changeable eyes. The flash of fierce want and humiliated pride with each request when she sent him out for some errand and returned to him his fine, feathered self only to watch him lift effortlessly into the air to obey her word.

"Mistress. . ." Diaval croaked again, edging closer, and Maleficent turned away again, with a soft moan, lifting her right hand to her face as she moved.

Diaval continued his approach, a gentle hop bringing him down to the soft fabric and moss of Maleficent's nest. Maleficent raised her hand slightly, first two fingers extended, and Diaval paused and waited for the magic to answer her will. He wasn't pushed away, nor was he changed into some other shape to suit his mistress' need or wish.

When no magic came and Maleficent did not move again, Diaval edged closer, with a dip of his head and a nervous flutter of his wings. He stretched himself, brushing the forward edge of one wing against the pale skin surrounding one raw wound on his mistress' back, feeling the quaver, barely detectible, that the touch triggered within her.

Diaval knew the voices of his kind were strident, rarely to be found soothing or sweet. He tried his best all the same, for his mistress, whose pain he feared so fiercely for himself, as any feathered thing who had once been threatened might.

And over the years. . . Diaval had not been _told_ , of course, but he had come to guess at much of his mistress' story - for one who had been trusted, even loved, to deliver such a _betrayal_. . .

Diaval murmured such wordless comforts as he could to his mistress, bowing his head near to her spine as she shivered and began to shake. He could tell by the shape of her shoulders and the dip of her own head more than the sound of it that she was crying now.

Though she did not force him away, Maleficent would not show those tears, not even to her loyal servant, and Diaval made no attempt to venture from his place at her back, his harsh voice gentled to a whispery croak.

Eventually Maleficent cried herself out and drifted back to sleep, her body finally going still. It was then that Diaval spoke properly. He promised her once again, as he had many times before, that his loyal self would always keep her side, that his wings were hers when she needed him. That _he_ was hers, when she needed him. Whatever she needed of him.

Those things Maleficent might have expected to hear from him, even if she would have dismissed them as unnecessary - she knew Diaval would keep his oath to be her servant, whatever she needed, and she knew that there was little Diaval could have done to resist her whims in any case, if she so chose to enforce them.

But Diaval also crooned rough-voiced praises and pretties - he had never seen Maleficent before she had been wounded and brought low, goaded by despair and betrayal to new heights of strength and vengeance, but he could picture such a sight.

Maleficent was strong and tall - her wings would have been long and broad, lush with thick, heavy feathers and bearing a healthy shimmer. The pang in her voice when she spoke of such flights as she would, rarely as that was; the dauntless nature that shone through her always; the way her lips turned when she watched Diaval catch himself when he was unexpectedly returned to his true shape - he knew that she would have been a daring flyer, quick and wild, powerful but playful.

Diaval only voiced such thoughts when his mistress was safely sleeping, not wishing to bring her any more pain even so simply as bringing up old memories. He knew she would have been a beauty, though, a sight to see as she rode the winds and dipped low to the earth only to let her laughter, her delight, skim over the land before she rose once more to the skies. Back to the heights where she belonged, her rightful place from which such a vicious, greedy bastard of a human had brought her down.

Maleficent stirred again, but Diaval had already fallen silent, now only softly fluffing his feathers as he settled carefully against the smooth, cool skin of her back. She slept more peacefully with the brush of his feathers there, though Diaval knew his own must be nothing like unto what hers had been.

"Diaval." Maleficent breathed, and he stirred, lifting his head.

"Mistress." Diaval responded, not quite a question, and waited.

She only reached a hand up and back to him, twisting her body just enough to reach, and stroked her fingertips over his head, ruffling beneath the feathers of his neck and scratching lightly. There were no more words between them, and Maleficent neither pushed him away nor encouraged him closer as she returned to sleep.

Diaval settled himself sleepily, soothing his mistress until she had fallen deeply into a peaceful slumber, curled into a languid half-moon in her nest.

This would not be acknowledged by the light of the coming day, Diaval knew, and fully accepted. His mistress clung to her vengeance and allowed no one to see the heart-rending truth of the agony beneath, her strength and will indomitable.

It was why he followed her every command, her purpose, even as she treaded paths shrouded ever more deeply in the shadowy poison of vicious, vibrantly green magics. Diaval owed her his life, it was true, and he had sworn his service, but beyond even that. . . His heart understood the horror of her loss, and drew him to aid her in her quest, no matter the cost.

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At first thought this was more of a ship-fic, but when I wrote this is how it came about, naturally, so I didn't force it.


End file.
